Over school spelling/ting xie (听写)
Zara : I don’t think I have ting xie tomorrow. But what happens if I have?
Me : Did you check your gong ke biao (功课表/homework list).
Zara : But what happens if I copied wrongly?
Me : Did your teacher say there’s ting xie tomorrow?
Zara : No, he didn’t. But what happens if I heard wrongly? Then I get everything wrong? I’ll get smacked.
Me : If it’s not in your gong ke biao (功课表/homework list), and you didn’t hear your teacher say there’s ting xie, then there is no ting xie! OK!
Zara : But…..
Me : Zara, please…..next time double check your gong ke biao, and if your teacher says tingxie or something, write it down somewhere so you’ll remember.
Started shedding tears, kept very quiet, looked worried. o.O”

Over school homework 1.
Zara : Can you read the instruction and tell me if I need to colour the picture
Me : *read* No, it just asks you to write the sentence that’s all.
Started shedding tears, kept very quiet, looked worried.
Me : *impatient* What is it now?
Zara : What happens if I need to colour?
Me : The instruction didn’t ask you to colour!
Zara : What happens if I my teacher asked me to colour? Can you call him and ask? o.O”
Me : We only call teacher for important thing. This is not important.
Daddy : If you think you need to colour then colour.
Zara : What happens if I colour and my teacher didn’t want me to colour, then he scold me?
Daddy : If the instruction said no need to colour, and you went and colour, it’s doing extra work. Teacher won’t scold you for doing extra work.
Looked exceptionally troubled, then relieved.
Zara : I think I’ll colour lightly, if teacher didn’t want us to colour, I’ll just rub of the colour when I’m in school.
(Whatever!)

Over school homework 2.
Zara : I need a photo from our holiday.
Me : Do you really need one? *read the instructions* Instructions says you either stick a photo, or draw a picture of you on holiday.We don’t have a photo printed, so you just draw.
Zara : What happens if my drawing doesn’t look real? Then teacher will beat me.
Me : You are only 7 yrs old, your teacher cannot expect you to draw something that look real.
Daddy : Ya, your teacher wont’ expect you to draw like Picasso or Van Gogh.
Ok, that settles it. She started drawing herself climbing a tree which she did during the March holidays. After finished drawing and colouring, she looked worried.
Zara : What happens if my teacher asked me where are my parents?
o.O” OMG!
Me : *patiently* Just tell him, we are watching you from afar, so we are not in the picture
Zara : What happens if he said, “你的爸爸妈妈在那里？做什么没有在图画里？”(where are your parents, why are they not in the picture) and scold me.
Me : *impatiently* Zara, your teacher is not unreasonable. Just tell him what I told you. Your parents are watching you. If you are so worried, then just draw 2 shadows of us watching you.
Zara : What happens if cannot, every body must show their faces?
Started shedding tears, kept very quiet, looked worried. o.O”
Me : *very impatiently* Zara, it’s not the end of the world. Your teacher doesn’t beat you or scold you for no reason ok? You won’t get scolding or beating for things like that. Please. Little thing you worry, little thing you worry. If you worried so much, next time just copy down all the instructions the teacher gives, then you won’t miss it.
Daddy : Next time, just take your friends’ phone number. Better still, take 2 friends. Then if you are not sure, just call them and ask.

……..

I was expecting the next question, What happens if they are not home?” o.O”
But phew… luckily she didn’t start..

……..

And no, her teacher is not really unreasonable. I’m not aware she’s been scolded or beaten for any homework related thing. So far, she’s been caned (she said lightly) on the palm because her nails were not clipped according to the teacher’s standard (not all the way to the skin), and Daddy has already gone to the school to tell the teacher to exercise more care in his punishment, teacher apologised and told Daddy he will.

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14 Comments

OMG! when u know how to handle, tell me too… Rachel is exactly like that… Good example is, she’ll go into a spiral of worries about what if i don’t remember to do that, what if i forget to remind myself… etc etc etc…

emm…..really kesian the kids 🙁 …. wonder what had our chinese sch done to the kids!!! having said that, im here wishing that mine would be half worrying abt their school, work & etc but alas ….they r way too relax!! there’s always this dilemma i guess 🙁

u r getting irritated cos to u, it may be small stuff…but in HER EYES…she feels insecure. perhaps she saw other pupils being punished or questioned by teacher? or maybe the teacher is sending “fear” to the students? in order to solve this, must find out the root cause. easiest is to check with other parents first and secondly to the school..ask them what system they follow. although i hv no experience, but this is how i would approach it.

OMG! Sounds to familiar. I face the same problem with ting xie. Sometimes YY will come back and say there’s ting xie but she forgot to copy the words but there’s actually none! Then there’s the issue with need or no need to colour and I’ll just tell her to colour if she’s unsure. There was also once where she said she was in the toilet and she wasn’t sure if the teacher gave any homework! And just today, she insisted to do her Chinese homework the way her friends told her, but contrary to the instructions in the workbook so I let her be. And just before bed, she started to worry “What if” I was right and her friends were wrong. I’ve lost count of the times I had to call her classmates’ parents for help 🙁